One of the objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is to promote sustainable agriculture in the EU. However, its impact is limited. In addition, developments over the past 30 years have led to parallel structures and increasing bureaucratisation. At the same time, climate change and other environmental problems have become more prominent. This led to growing calls for a more targeted EU agricultural policy. Assessment systems for sustainability in the agriculture and food sector can contribute to this. In the current negotiations for the CAP funding period from 2028 onwards, researchers from the Thünen Institute are contributing their scientific expertise, as they have done in previous rounds of negotiations.
In a recent special issue of the agricultural policy journal EuroChoices, scientists from the Thünen Institutes for Farm Economics and Rural Studies, together with researchers from other European countries, present concrete ways in which environmental impacts can be effectively measured and rewarded within the CAP. The special issue was initiated and edited by Nicolas Lampkin from the Thünen Institute of Farm Economics and Uwe Latacz-Lohmann from the University of Kiel.
The authors present reform options and compare them with each other – including approaches that would require a fundamental reorientation of the CAP. For example, they show that results-based payments for environmental services appeal to farmers' self-interest. At the same time, however, there is a risk that only small amounts will ultimately be paid out. Hybrid models, on the other hand, which combine action-based and results-based payments, could mitigate this problem. Bonuses for farmers who provide a wide range of environmental services also promote innovation, but make implementation difficult for the administration to plan, according to the authors.
"The CAP measures must be flexible for member states to implement," explains Nicolas Lampkin. It is also important to recognise environmental services as an independent branch of production and to reward them in a targeted manner.
Researchers from the Thünen Institute are involved in several articles. They deal with the public goods bonus (Christine Krämer, Norbert Röder), an indicator-based approach to rewarding environmental services (Nicolas Lampkin), a comparison of the approaches presented in the special issue (Nicolas Lampkin, Christine Krämer, Frank Offermann, Norbert Röder) and a classification of the Commission's proposals for the CAP after 2027 (Norbert Röder).
EuroChoices is an international journal aimed at political decision-makers, among others. In their articles, the authors present current research findings and economic analyses on agricultural, food and rural issues in an understandable way, thus contributing to fact-based political decisions.
